


Winter’s Town

by Stell_Jager



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 07:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11824035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stell_Jager/pseuds/Stell_Jager
Summary: Once upon a time there was a town run like clockwork, perched high in the mountains. For a long time it had been town tradition to wake shivering from winter’s cold grip, but in recent years it seemed that winter shook the town awake earlier and harder . It had been said in years before that every year winter courted their dear town, but that every year the town spurned her to return to summer’s warm embrace. It now seemed that winter had caught her eye. Every passing year their dear town seemed to be more and more reluctant to leave behind her sweetheart, and more and more eager to rebuff summer’s advances.  There was talk that soon that their dear town and winter would be eternally bound.





	Winter’s Town

      Once upon a time there was a town run like clockwork, perched high in the mountains. For a long time it had been town tradition to wake shivering from winter’s cold grip, but in recent years it seemed that winter shook the town awake earlier and harder . It had been said in years before that every year winter courted their dear town, but that every year the town spurned her to return to summer’s warm embrace. It now seemed that winter had caught her eye. Every passing year their dear town seemed to be more and more reluctant to leave behind her sweetheart, and more and more eager to rebuff summer’s advances. There was talk that soon that their dear town and winter would be eternally bound.

  
      Nevertheless, the townspeople woke, ate, worked, and slept, to the rhythm of their wind-up lives. The familiar beat might have sounded… harsher, hollower perhaps, to those who knew it well, but to an outsider it sounded identical. However, the sound grew sharper every day that passed as the cold surrounding the townsfolk began to breach their skin. It started in their hands, flowed into their bones. Then it got into their blood, running through their veins like poison. After that, it happened quickly, the cold wrapped around a person, sunk into their skin, froze their eyes, their feet, their tongue, until finally it breached their heart. As more and more of the townspeople fell to winter’s graces the music of the town’s beat groaned to a cacophonic halt.

  
      As it happened, there were indeed outsiders who listened to the town’s normally steady beat. While these outsiders had not heard the warning signs, no one could miss the horrific end of the town’s song. Aloud the outsiders said it was a horrible thing to happen. In their minds they thought it was an opportunity. In their minds they thought of the profit. The outsiders decided that something must be done. The outsiders decided that the encroaching cold was the fault of the town’s imperfections. The outsiders decided the town must be fixed. So the outsiders sent for a clockmaker.

 

    Soon the Clockmaker set to work. Soon the town was cleaned of its strange dreams and nightmares. The town’s color took a bit more work to scrub out. The Clockmaker had been surprised by how much effort it took to get the hope out of the town, but eventually it faded into nothingness. The Clockmaker had to smash the town to pieces and pick them out of the rubble one by one the to remove all the stories. And so, by the Clockmaker’s hand the town had been completely and utterly destroyed, but the deaths caused by winter’s frozen embrace had stopped, so the townsfolk accepted it. The Clockmaker had left the fear in after all. Finally, the Clockmaker finished his work by molding the old town’s remains into a new town, a new piece of clockwork; perfected and sterile. Looking at his creation the Clockmaker dubbed it “Winter’s Town.” Though the Clockmaker’s work was done he remained in town to make sure it stayed in repair.

  
      In Winter’s Town, there lived a girl who did not quite fit in this grand creation of the Clockmakers. Her name was Eira. Eira could see things others could not. She saw the cold was still there, that the cold still killed. She did not think others saw this; saw the way the dark blue cold would eat up a person, how they died and what would happened… after. She did not think they would be able to stop from screaming if they did. Things had come with the Clockmaker, things that burrowed, that kept the hosts body alive, kept it moving, smiling; acting like a proper citizen, kept the mechanical beating of the town’s heart in time.

  
      This had happened to the little girl who lived next door to Eira. Eira had watched as she had slowly been eaten alive, as she had taken her last breath, closed her eyes for the last time, and then something else had opened them. It had smiled at her when Eira walked passed her on her way to school, it had smiled at everyone that walked passed, but Eira had felt the daggers in that smile, and she had felt the daggers in her own. It was horrible, yes, but the most horrible thing was the little girl’s mother hadn’t noticed. Whether from neglect or because something else now moved the mother’s limbs Eira could not say. It was utterly monstrous.

  
      Just like Eira was not, no matter what she feared or hoped in the dead of night. Eira was normal, normal even though it didn’t fit, like too tight shoes that pinched until she bled. She was normal, she had to be because that was what kept body and soul together under the Clockmaker’s watchful eye. Eira thought her body and soul was quite a lovely couple, and that it would be quite a shame to split them up with their tin anniversary coming up and all. As such Eira knew she would do quite a lot indeed to ensure that they stuck together. Though she sometimes wondered in the dead of night, the time such thoughts often come, if it was worth it. She wondered if she could not risk their union, a little, to break the mold that contained her. Just a little, where it would not show, to relieve the pressure where the mold made her crumble, less, cracked and bleeding.

  
      Still, she didn’t like looking in mirrors. She felt that little piece she kept inside, that little piece of her heart the cold and normalcy had yet to breach, look out when she did. She did not think that little bit of the person she used to be liked who she was now. So she avoided mirrors and flinched in fear whenever she saw one out of the corner of her eye. She did not know what she was afraid of more; her past self’s judgment, or that one-day, she might look into mirror and not be able to find her forgotten self at all.

  
      Eira had trouble remembering being that long ago forsaken girl, it was hard to remember being anything other than normal. She certainly did not remember before the cold had sunk into the town’s bones. Her memories made it seem like the soldiers had always marched on the streets as part of the Clockmaker’s toolbox. That there had never a time before the Clockmaker had fixed her town, fixed her. She knew, however, deep in her soul, it had not always been this way. She just felt that it used to be…better, colder maybe, but …better.

  
      Eira did remember how the Clockmaker fixed the town. Eira remembered how she had kept quiet as the color bled out of her world. As her beloved town twitched and screamed as the new world was built over its rapidly cooling corpse. Eira had seen what the Clockmaker had not; the Clockmaker had not been as thorough with his cleaning as he thought he had been.

  
      Eira saw her father who had once loved to paint her mother with kisses, begin to adorn her with bruises. She saw how one night her father stopped in the middle of his decorating, and slowly, jerkily, like a puppet pulled on strings, walked outside and shot himself. She saw how the shadows in town did not always fit a person, like something was hiding just behind them. She saw young Kevin Dailey get hit by a car, die, but still show up for school the next day. She saw that some mirrors in town could make you bleed if you got too close to them. She saw how her mother simply began to fade away after her father’s death, slowly becoming more and more see-through, retreating from her life. Until she was just a faint presence that went through the routine the daily chores and nothing more. You see, the Clockmaker had taken so much from their town, but he had left the monsters. Eira sometimes wondered if was not oversight but cruelty that had led him to do so.

  
      Monsters or not under the Clockmaker’s watch the droning beat of the town remained steady. So did the drone of Eira's own life, it was a sound that scratched at her, like a violin out of tune. The refrain went like this, wake, eat, and walk to school. A sharp shriek of terror from the violins as she passes the dark boots. The dark boots that each of the soldiers of the Clockmakers toolbox wears. Everyday Eira passed the two guarding the gate into her school, without daring to walk faster, without daring to look, without daring to breathe. Then the monotonous refrain would start again as the school day began, she sat, eyes forward mind shut. Finally on her way home there was at last a sweet note. The trilling meow of a cat, her secret cat, that lived in her alley. Her one moment of peace throughout the day. All too soon she would have to go home again and begin the wearisome tune all over again. But there, in that alley, with her cat, she had peace.

  
      It was a day just like any other, like all days were, when music changed. It was morning and Eira She stood before the door. She hunched herself over, drew herself in; became less of what she was. It hurt. She told herself death would hurt more. The thought spurred her to open the door, like it did every morning so far. So she set off, scurrying her way to school. The near-endless dull beat pounding in her ears.

  
      Then came the drumroll that sent her day out of it constant droning beat, a roll of thunder. Fear stuck her so strong and fast she thought she had been struck by lighting for a moment. She had to run, to run back home. Where was the closest shelter? She had to get inside. To protect herself from the burning rain that fell by the Clockmakers bidding. To keep the town warm he said. She had to run, …but the cat, her cat. She had to get him inside. She walked faster, and then ran and ran and ran until her alley and her cat was in sight. She lunged to grab her cat but at the last second he darted. The momentum was too much to stop herself, she tried to catch the wall on the side of the alley but the movement to twist toward it made her lose her footing completely. She fell, hard.

 

      It was dark when she opened her eyes. She froze in fear; she must be out past curfew. If she was out passed curfew she would be made to disappear, discarded from the Clockmakers ever changing design. If she disappeared there would be an investigation, into her home and her school. If there was an investigation they would find the strange, those who also did not fit into the Clockmaker design. Her mother, some of her classmates, even her favorite teacher would also be disappeared. No one would be left to care for her cat. It would starve, or freeze, or maybe it would run out of its alley to try and find her, only to be shot down by one of the Clockmakers tools.

  
      In her panic Eira nearly did not realize something vital, she was warm. As she slowly stirred and awoke from her internal panic, she realized her cat had been licking her cheek. She stumbled to her feet slowly, and let her cat lead her down a long and twisting path. Until finally, in the darkness Eira saw a light spilling out of a door. The warmth seemed to come from it. She reach for the door, and the tips of her fingers had almost its handle when she was suddenly seized.

  
      It was horrible. It was angry. It was frightening. It was frightened. It had claws, and wings, and teeth, and it was filled with rage, and fear, and pain. It was was pain, it was her pain, and her town’s pain, but so much more than that as well. It was the ghost of what her town had been before. It was horrifyingly beautiful and beautifully horrible, and more than anything it was not normal. It screamed to her the stories she could not remember forgetting and whispered to her stories she had forgotten she remembered. And what it said was this:

 

  
“We do not really mean it.

We do not really mean it,  
But they say there is a world between the living and the dead.  
And it’s closer than you think.  
There are things in there dark; they are not friendly, not nice, and not kind.  
They are not merciful.

No matter what they say.

They are the shadows on the wall.

They are the darkness in your head.

They are the cold spot in your room.

They are the dead who refused to die and those who have never lived and never will.

They are the reason you fear graveyards, the woods at night, the dark itself, and all other abandoned spaces because that is where they hunt,

where they feed.

In your soul you all remember,

why you didn’t let your mother turn the light out without you closing your eyes first,

why you held your breath running past graveyards,

why you knew that child you saw in the corner of your eyes tiptoeing past the mirror at night was not you.  
You knew because as children we are still close to the world beyond and we remember it.  
We change as we get older,

forget the old ways and rules, and label them as flights of fancy, easily brushed aside as superstition and old wives tales.

We forget no one told us them, the stories in our head.

We forget or try to about the things in the dark.  
We tell ourselves again and again that there is nothing in the shadows,

the graveyards,

the woods,

the mirrors,

in the dark.

That the things we see are merely a product of an overactive imagination.

That there is nothing there,

again and again to try to convince ourselves it's true,

to try to make it true.

  
But there things in the dark whether you believe it or not.  
They are not kind, they are not cruel.

They live in a world outside our moral constructs, but are close enough to try.

Here is a story of a city breaking under the strain of silence and forgetfulness,

but more than that, more than anything it was about a little girl and monsters.”

 

  
      The creature stopped its whisper roar, it unwound its long jagged fingers and gently set her down on the ground. Eira shook. She shook from rage, from fear, from the force of a thousand stories slamming back into her, she shook from the weight of a history that fought against being forgotten; but for the first time in a long time she did not shake from the cold. After a while that was both short and eternal she stopped shaking and looked up to where the monster had been. The space was empty, it had always been empty, Eira knew that now, knew how a placed could be empty and full at the same time. It was the way of that kind of monster, it would always be there, without ever even bothering to exist at all.

  
      She knew the kind of monster the Clockmaker was now. It was the kind of monster that didn’t need shadows to hide in, only a smile and the firm belief he was doing the right thing. The kind that spread it monstrous form through cloth. The cloth of a uniform, it was a horrifying thing that cloth, it ate at people. It ate their morals, their hope, their free will. It ate at them, bit by bit till there was nothing left inside. Just a shell the whispers could direct. Just a tool in the Clockmaker’s box.

  
      She knew what kind of monster Winter had been, and by the gods Winter had been monstrous. She had been broken, she had been beautiful, in her frost brittled clothes and chapped lips, her world had been beautiful, wonderous. She had been with her town and and they had been happy, or at least she thought they had both been happy. She had held on too hard, and hurt her beloved. She had loved her town and her town had loved Winter back. For this was Winter’s town, the name the Clockmaker had no right to christen to his new and horrifying creation. This was Winter’s town and it would be revenged, and in that vengeance revived.

  
      Eira remembered the words to the story, to the old tune, the song of her town. The lyrics ran through her head as she opened her eyes. She blinked water out of her eyes. The rain had begun. She was afraid, but did not run or hide. She stood in the daylight, as the water fell around her and watched the light peice the water and shattered it into a thousand colors surrounding her. Then she started to walk. As she walked she felt four little feet flank her in her shadows. She did not look back, she knew if she turned back she would never start again. The rain got heavier, it went from sprinkling to drizzling to pouring. She walked on, it did not burn, or if it did it merely burned her fear and hesitance away into nothing. People peered through their windows, she saw fear there, and hope.

  
      Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope is a monstrous thing. Hope is exactly what they needed. It was the stab of a knife used in surgery, the bite of a leach, it was a pain that helped to heal wounds so old the town had half forgotten them. So the Town watched her, and they hoped.

  
      Finally she arrived, where she had not yet known she was going, her school. This time she did not bend her head and shudder as she walked toward the gates. This time she walked forward, slow and steady, and did not drop her eyes, in a few short paces she stood before the guard. She looked in his eyes.

  
      It was her next door neighbor’s son, the uniform had consumed him completely, but she thought she saw a glimpse of that sweet little boy in his eyes. She looked into them and she addressed the uniform, and the whisperers in their ears. She addressed the Clockmaker. She addressed the Outsiders who hired him to harvest her town’s song.  
She spoke, and she sang, and she screamed and she whispered:

  
“Go away,  
Give us back our brothers, our fathers, our sons,  
Take your uniforms, and guns, and whispers away,  
Give our town back  
It doesn't belong to you  
Go away  
You are making our monsters angry”  
As she spoke, she was the voice of winter.

  
And the town trembled.

 

The Outsiders shivered at the first gust of cold wind, unaware of what it foretold. They would freeze to death long before the news of the rebellion would reach them.


End file.
